Bye bye Thailand

I would like to officially upgrade my annoyance at the suit people to the "anger" level.

Thai tailors, you are officially on notice!

Yesterday was a pretty strange day.
We woke up and got ready for our five island tour. We were pretty excited, because our kayaking tour had been so awesome the day before. We were still waiting outside at 9:00 for our 8:30 pick-up, so I walked over to our ticket agent (the nextdoor guest house from where we had moved) and asked what the problem was. She got on the phone, yelled in Thai, and then told us it would be two minutes.
She was right! A truck roared up the drive, packed with tourists, and we hopped in the back. Problem was, they were all four-island tours, and we were five! When we got dropped off, we were grabbed by the arm and ushered into a pre-loaded boat that was already waiting. Whee!
Our first destination was Hong island. We were boated into a lagoon, which was just beautiful. The water was shallow and green, and there were very steep 200 m tall walls all around us.
Then, we were taken around the island for a swim! Yay! It was a national park, the water was beautiful and crystal clear and blue, and the weather was just gettinghot enough for an ideal late morning swim (since it had taken about an hour to boat out there, it was now late morning).
Then, we were informed that we would have to pay 200 bath to get out of the boat and swim. Since most of us had not brought money to our inclusive tour (so we had been told) most of us coudl not swim (I brought money, but I felt more at home in the angry mob). It took about five minutes for our "guides" (who told us nothing about the places where we were, although they did sing really nicely) to realize that we wanted to leave (surely, they had had this problem on previous tours), so they brought us around the islandto a shaded beach that was much less aweosme and picturesque, but was at least free.

Then, we went to another island, that adjoined to another island. That counts as two!
It was beautiful and picturesque though. I was snorkelling a little bit, and I saw some starfish! Cool, I thought, let's check this OUT!
I swam a little closer, and thought, wow, I wonder how they react to current! Let's stir things up a bit!
I proceeded to swirl the water with my hand, creating an impenetrable blanket of dust. When it finally cleared, I came to the horrible realization that I was in fact standing on about a quarter inch of sand that stood on a layer of overlapping starfish!
How many lives I had taken that day, I can only guess.
Before that though, we were given our included lunch. Hardly the spread we had had the previous day (six dishes), it was rice and chicken in styrofoam, which I guess is acceptable for a boat cruise, so I'm not complaining, just contrasting. We took our lunch out to eat on what looked like a beautiful little secluded sandy beach. Unfortunately, when we got out there, it turned out to be a horrible type of stone that was covered in little razor sharp points, and we had left our sandals on the boat.
We went to another island, which was neat, but really just more of the same at the point... load your stuff, get off the boat, lie down on the beach, swim, walk around... I may be getting vacationed out at this point.
On the way to the fifth island, a storm came up, which was not fun in a long tail boat, let me tell you. The waves were crashing over the sides (hide your digital cameras!) and the boat rocked pretty threateningly. The water that had been so warm to swim in became very cold in the wind, and no-one was surprised when we all decided to go home rather than do anymore snorkelling.

After our ill-fated island tour, we went back to our hotel to watch another DVD and rinse the salt out of every possible orifice. We watched this random indy film they happened to be selling here, called "American Chai". It was a really good movie, acutally, about an Indian growing up in America, who wants to play music, but his parents want him to be a doctor.
Then, dinner. Jessie had said she had never had lobster, so I offered to treat. Gotta spend those bath! And man, did I. haha! Lobster is not cheap, but it sure is garlicky! It was really good. I had garlic and butter stir-fried mussels, so by the end of the meal, neither of us wanted anything to do with the other (because garlic makes your breath stink, dumdum).
We packed everything up, and this morning we had a sleep-in and lunch at this Italian place we have been frequenting here. Now, it's just amatter of waiting for the plane to come, because everything is packed, and, as I have said, we are pretty vacationed out.
Well, that's all for now.
I'm off to get some more water! Whee!